would love to hear from someone who does not have this point of view. i guess he only wants the response of elon musk. >> there you go. thank you very much, my friend. before we go really quickly, i want to send condolences from the entire readout family to the family of eric board. eric was not just a great and valuable guest, but a fearless man who killed all of us immediately accountable. that is tonight's read out. we are sorry to see him go. all in with chris hayes starts now. >>o see him go all in with chris ha tonight on. >> this is the party of their identity. their identity is the most disgusting, evil, horrible things happening in our country. >> the hateful smears keep coming as republicans advance a controversial new marriage law in tennessee. >> there is no age limit in this bill? >> no. there is not an explicit age limit. >> it is my concerned. >> then, as the allegations

were crimes grow, how ukraine wanted an improbable victory in the battle for kyiv. and the house passes to criminal referrals for trump cronies, what we know about what the doj is up to, and new reporting on the lack of federal prosecutors for the hundreds of january six rioters who have yet to be charged. all in starts right now. good evening from new york, i am chris hayes. on the show we have been highlighting a disturbing new trend on the right where republicans and their allies play footsie with french conspiracy theorists by attempting to smear democrats as sympathetic child abuse. it is a dog whistle to qanon supporters who believe that the democratic party is made up of the satan worship-ing pedophiles who run a child sex trafficking ring. that is their belief. not to be out done, last night republican star marjorie taylor greene of georgia who has her

finger on the pulse of the republican base as well as anyone took the rhetoric a step further doing away with any pretense, and just explicitly calling her political opponents pedophiles. >> the democrats are the party of pedophiles. the democrats are the party of princess predators from disney. the democrats are the party of teachers, elementary school teachers, trying to transition their elementary school aged children and convince them they are a different gender. this is the party of their identity, and their identity is the most disgusting, evil, horrible things happening in our country. and that is why we have to say it. >> now, green maybe the most extreme republican in terms of that rhetoric, but she is far from the only one pushing that exact line of attack. in fact, it has become mainstream. it was the entire basis of the republican smears against judge ketanji brown-jackson. soon to be the first black woman to sit on the supreme court in this nation's history.

with the vote for her confirmation coming as early as tomorrow. one of the prolific smear peddlers was republican senator marshall blackburn of tennessee. >> i do want to go back to the issue about the child predators. do you believe child predators are misunderstood? so, is it your position that child pornography offenders are not pedophiles? do you believe that it matters to the children and their parents who suffer abuse, what motivation those abusers had? i want to make certain that we protect children, and that we continue to do our best effort to protect children. i also want to make certain that we are going to have judges on the federal bench, and justices that are going to protect those rights of children. >> again, the context hear is

clear. that is just a few degrees more central than marjorie taylor greene, but they are doing the same thing. now, if senator blackburn is acting in good, faith which seems doubtful to me, but if she is concerned about, as i keep saying, the very, very real issue of child sexual abuse, then it is odd that she does not at least appear publicly to be using her power to do anything about a very disturbing situation that has been happening in her home state house. state representatives in tennessee have been working on a bill known as hb233. it is basically an anti-gay marriage bill. it would allow the state to make an additional marriage category only eligible to opposite sex couples who do not want to be part of the same institution that allows gay people to tie the knot. now, that is bigoted and bad on its own, right? it is an indication, that should be very, clear of just how much right wing forces right now are gathering themselves and rolling back

marriage equality. that is coming. but that is not even the worst part of that particular piece of legislation. the house version of the bill as it was introduced didn't include an age minimum. yeah. it means it could pave the way to legalized child marriage. like child brides. again, i am not making this up. i thought this was not true when i first read the story. but listen to the sponsor of the bill, republican state representative tom leather would. >> all this bill does is give an alternative form of marriage for those pastors and other individuals who have a conscious just objection to the current pathway of marriage. >> is there no age limit to this bill? >> again, with my understanding, i would think it would be 18,

it is the way this would be construed. >> but i just want to make clear, just what the testimony is. there is no age limit? okay. i just want to make sure that -- >> my concern. >> no. there is not an explicit age limit. >> i watched several times. what exactly are you up here, leatherwood? you know there is an explicit age limit in the law at the time as the other representative notes, but there is no age limit here. now, on the other men you heard talking there is democrat mike stored. he called the bill, get out of jail free card for people who are basically committing statutory rape. again, sounds bad to me. also, what? again, just to be clear, this is not an abstract concern. there are people out there with

fringe religious beliefs who would take advantage of such a loophole. for example, there is the story, someone infamous, a religious fanatic, president of the church of jesus christ allotted a saint, not to be confused with the irregular morgan mormon church. he is accused of having wives who are under age. back in 2007, he was charged, and convicted on charges of facilitating the marriage of a 14 year old to a 19 year old cousin. again, that sounds disgusting and wrong to me. that alone is pretty horrifying. but wouldn't you know it, tucker carlson, one of the most vocal champions of the democrats did not see it that way. it think it was a big deal. in fact, back in 2009, he went out of his way to defend him. >> well actually he is not in person for that. he didn't, he didn't marry underage girls. >> he's in prison for facilitation of child rape. >> whatever that means. he is in prison because he is weird and unpopular, and he has

a different lifestyle that other people find creepy. >> no, he is an accessory to the rape of children. that is a felony, and the serious one at that. >> what do you mean an accessory? he's like, got some weird religious cult where he thinks it's okay to, you know, marriott underage girls. but he didn't do it. why wouldn't the guy who actually did it, who had sex with an underage girl, he should be the one doing life. the rapist in this case has made a lifelong commitment to live and take care of the person, so it is a little different. let's be honest about it. >> now, i mean, i am just a humble cable news host trying to get my arms around this. if you things, mary, he did marry them. not doesn't not as and he married them, but he married them. -- which include child brides. so a 14 year old, and also the rapist pledged to take care of the 14 year old, so that is fine. and that should not be in jail for facilitating the incestuous

marriage of a 14 year old. which again, that is a view you can have. i think it is really weird, and unnerving. just me. in a way, tucker got his wish. in 2010, just conviction was actually overturned. so, he was ahead of the curve there. but then, unfortunately, one year later he was sentenced to life in prison after a jury found him guilty of raping a 15 year old, and a 12 year old. so, i think people are rightly concerned about the prospect of legislation that would legalize child marriage. i think that is probably what would happen. you would think that being such a great defender of children that senator marshall blackburn of tennessee of all people, after that big star turn in those hearings, in the very stage where this is being proposed would be losing her mind about this bill when it is so glaring and obvious. given of course the way she lost her mind during those jackson hearings.

but, as far as we can tell, nothing in public. we actually reached out to her office today to get her thoughts on the prospective bill and when she thought about child marriage. we have not heard back. we are, you would take an opportunity to hit that softball, don't you think? but other people have been reporting about what has happened in tennessee. in fact, it has generated some pretty negative headlines for obvious reasons. i mean, the child bride bill does not sound great, does? it just today, two weeks after the tennessee republicans admitted the bill have no explicit age requirements, they passed an unmanned meant to the bill that would require both parties to be 18 or older before getting married. well, good. it took a bit of work, right? even though it is its sponsor, leatherwood, thought it was not very necessary. >> my position is that the bill would not have allowed minors to be able to get married because of contract and so forth, but i can see and understand how that might have been misunderstood. >> again, round of applause.

to be clear, it is a good thing. it is good tennessee republicans are not legalizing child marriage. it is bad that it basically took weeks and public outcry for them to do something about it. again, the very party that claims to be very concerned with protecting children right now, that is accusing their enemies of being literal pedophiles wrote a bill that apparently would have allowed children to get married, and then they got caught, and our public scrutiny and backlash, the reassessed and change the language of the bill. no thanks to marsha blackburn. democratic state senator it's a tennessee legislator, and she joins me now. i cannot make heads and hills of this entire scenario. i have followed the reporting from your state closely. give us the context for this legislation. what are they up to down there? >> absolutely. this is another republican attempt to circumvent marriage. and basically put their own values on every day people of tennessee. what's the attempt of this bill is to say that marriage between a man and a woman is the

correct way to marriage. so what we are doing is undermining the marriage system we already have in place to try to circumvent the decision of the supreme court. it is just interesting this party is always the party of contradictions. the party they say we need to follow the law of the land, law in order, follow the rules, it is the party that is exactly trying to circumvent the exact laws of the land that has come down from the supreme court. now, when this bill was pushed, if it was not for the mass outcry of many citizens of the state, this bill would have passed, and not placed those amendments on there that would put the age restrictions. but i want people to be very, very clear. this is not an accident that those age restrictions were left off. again, a former state senator david fowler was pushing against a ban for child marriages as a way to push back against same sex couples. they knew the unintended consequences. now that people are at crying, and talking about this particular bill, we want to put

the age requirements in which will be on my senate floor tomorrow. however, the bill is more than likely going to pass because we are again, the past seven years have been making attacks against the lgbtq community and their ability to love one another. tennessee has a host of problems we need to solve. we need to talk about our education system, we need to fix our criminal justice system, an hour ago i had to stop a bill to ban bucks in the libraries. we need to focus on the real issue. like getting people jobs, versus who has the right to love and who doesn't. those are not the statements we need to be making in the state when we have plenty of other issues we could be focusing on. >> so, the supreme court decision you are referencing of course, in 2014 if i am not mistaken, that essentially finds the constitution protects marriage equality, in every state. i have a few follow-up questions. one is, has this been the kind of thing they have been taking a run out in successive legislative sessions?

there are sometimes abortion bills, for instance, that will come up again and again. or is this new, this kind of attempt to create a straits only version of marriage in your state? have they done this before, or is this new? >> they have done it before. back in 2018 before i entered the legislation, it was an attempt to do the same thing. but it was killed. and so we are coming back again and making another attempt that creates a brand new form of marriage in the state that has never been done before. and an unintended consequence of this, which were truly intentional in my opinion, is that we did not put any age restrictions. so we were than allowing child marriages in the state. again, there has been an attempt every year, even before i got into the legislator, to circumvent the lgbtq family to live a happy, healthy, and fair life just like everybody else in the state. and this has just taken it to a whole new level. >> all right. i'm glad that it appears to have stopped the child bride

provision of the legislation in your state with a bit of national notice. tennessee state senator, thank you so much for your time. now i want to bring in nbc news senior reporter, who reports on extremist movements including qanon. i want to talk to you tonight because you have been embedded in the subculture for a very long time. i think for people that have been, the rhetoric coming from the right right now between what we saw with the ketanji brown jackson hearing, ron desantis and his spokespeople, i mean ... on the internet, among rioters, in places where democrats are pro pedophile, pedophile adjacent, pedophiles themselves, it is truly like shocking stuff. but you have been tracing the pre-history. explain how we got here. it really is blowing my mind. people ask me, what are the qanon people saying?

just look at the congresswoman's twitter, that is what they are saying. it is so mainstream. this came from a blog, a message board in 2017 and 2018, and how fast they have mainstream this lie that pedophiles are everywhere you look in the democratic party, in hollywood, in your schools, and media, that they are literally everywhere. that just happened so fast. margaret taylor greene making all the claims that you just showed before, this is really a years-long fever dream come true for some of the worst people on the internet. they did it, they made it, this is it. >> i have to say, i wrestled us, lots of people including myself, i have mental health issues in my life, lots of people do, i always feel weird bumping up the language of mental health, there is something --

i have gone on tiktok recently, and occasionally, a video be served up on the algorithm saying i caught these child traffickers. it is just a video of a random passerby integration store. it is very clear to me to the person that is taking this is not well, that i am looking at genuine break with reality. they think they are seeing a child sex trafficker who's actually a person walking on the grassy aisle. it has like 20,000 likes. i am like, what is going on in the world? but this is on the president. >> that's the thing. that stuff belongs on the internet. we had the white vance freak out, someone takes a picture of why fans and says oh my god my children. we have the car seat in the parking lot, they said it was evidence that someone who's coming to steal your baby, but it was just someone taking out one car seat and leaving their old one.

those videos have always gone crazy on tiktok and online because that is where urban legend spread. the fact there are in the halls of congress and at a confirmation for a supreme court justice, that is what is blowing my mind. >> i guess what you are saying is that this has crossed over in a way that you did not even anticipate. the question is also, is their blow back? saying the democratic party is a bunch of evil pedophiles is really ugly rhetoric. someone on the internet says this sounds like preet genocide rhetoric. they are the most evil kind of thing imaginable. whether there is some blow back for that, even in the same universe as the rights aren't happening this. >> there is a famous gif that says lol, nothing matters and spins rounded around.

that is sometimes i feel. i think it is important to notice that this is an anti-lgbtq argument. this is always been really popular, as you know, we have the satanic panic, during marriage equality -- i remember the duggars making these robocalls, beware of trans people, they will miss lester children. that has always been a popular argument in evangelical and ultra conservative movements. i think you are right. that expansion, expanding it to everyone is a peasant pedophile that disagrees with you, i want to believe that there is some price to pay for that. >> brandy zadrozny, thank you so much free time tonight. tonight, the house holds two former trump aides in contempt was defying subpoenas of the january six investigation. where is the department justice do now. they have a full docket sitting there in that building.

plus, after ukrainian forces managed to stop russian forces from taking kyiv, how should we think of ukraine's chances of overall victory. reality on the ground after this. round afte this ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪

♪♪ on the second day of russia's

invasion of ukraine nearly six weeks ago, my colleague ali velshi interview the ukrainian minister of culture from his car early in the morning in the suburbs of kyiv. russian troops are closing in. there had already been attacks

on our purchase outside the city. the ukrainian minister still showed this amazing moment of defiance. >> you do not feel that they will succeed in taking out your administration and government? >> no way. >> will you do if they occupy kyiv, whatever your contingency plans? will you go west to lviv? will you form a government in exile at the russians force you to? >> they will never take kyiv. >> that is as decisive statement as we can expect. >> it is not 40 days later. so far, he has not been proven incorrect. the russians have not taken the capital city. today, a senior u.s. defense official says u.s. says russian forces have completely withdrawn from cities of kyiv and chernihiv but warned they could still pivot back. courtney kube of nbc news joins us now from the pentagon.

let's start -- i remember seeing that and thinking that is the kind of bravado that you would want from a government official, but i was not quite sold that that was correct at a military level. it does seem at this point the battle for kyiv in the initial stages has been won by the ukrainians and they have repelled the russian advances? is that with the u.s. government sees? >> nobody is spiking the football here to say that kyiv is completely out of danger. if you look at this as one of the faces of the russian military campaign for a large-scale invasion of ukraine, this initial phase of going in and taking kyiv, the russians have all retreated. it does look like the ukrainians have repelled this initial phase. now, i think the reason people are not saying this is a huge win for ukraine because it is very possible that later down the road, the russians could

come back. they could attack even the air, that is still possible. it is not that kyiv is out of the woods completely. but you are absolutely right, it does look like in the initial phase, ukrainians pushed russians back. >> exactly, i have to say that that is it, that is done. all i'm trying to say is that there was an attempt to take kyiv. there was a convoy headed for. there was an attempt to encircle. there was unspeakable brutality and what appears to be war crimes in the suburbs around it that were occupied. ultimately, whatever they're are trying to do and achieve technically their, they did not achieve, right? >> exactly. not only did they try to take kyiv, but when they were getting pushback by the ukrainians and facing logistical issues and everything, the russians doubled down and opened a whole new line of assault. they open up a third line to try encircled the city. they were never able to encircle the city, let alone take any of it. >> that is a great point.

now it does seem like the first phase of this war has finish. that does not mean anything about what it's ultimate outcome is. there is not the shift to the east, everyone is saying that, the russians themselves are saying that in their own state media. what does that mean? tell us with the shift to the east means here? >> the forces that were around kyiv, it was about 40,000 tactical battalions. the numbers are hard to say exactly. it was roughly about 40,000 russian troops. for perspective, there were another 80 to 90 in the rest the country. that was a significant part of their firepower. they all moved up north into belarus and russia. the belief is that they are derek to get their gear working again, to potentially bring in reinforcements, maybe some new gear, driver on ukraine and to re-invade in the eastern part of ukraine. the question that officials can't seem to answer, they

might just not know yet, is where exactly will russia begin the next phase of this campaign. the one thing that they do agree on is that russia is believed to be the next -- the next assault will be in the southeast in the donbas. one of the reasons for that is that the russians already had military forces and contractors in the donbas area. they also have a strong logistical supply there. the belief is that the forces will move in north of there, they will surround the ukrainian military that are there along the line of contact near donbas and then they will have them surrounded and be able to move in. that is what the military calls a double envelopment. they will move around them. that has the potential, according to military officials, to be a brutal fight, if and when that begins in the coming weeks. >> that is really alarming, but also clarifying about where things stand right now. i saw some ukrainian officials tweeting today about kyiv

restaurants opening a backup, schools to. there is a crazy thing happening. we know the eastern conflict, and the images coming out of places that have receded from russian occupation just unspeakably brutal. the mayor of mariupol today estimating that 5000 civilians, including over 200 children are dead there. we will keep monitoring that, courtney kube thank you very much. still to come, as the house refers to more trump aides for contempt charges, new reporting for the doj is overwhelmed with jenner six cases. the push to unionize amazon warehouses gets a major boost in the president. >> that is what unions are about in my view, about providing dignity and respect for people. amazon, here we come. watch! watch! we eat healthy. we exercise. i noticed i wasn't as sharp as i used to be. my wife introduced me to prevagen

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addressed a packed meeting of the north american building trade union. at a moment when labor unionizing is that a role in the way it has not been in a long time. just in the past one week, and unaffiliated, totally grassroots campaign organized the first-ever union in an amazon warehouse in staten island, new york, unionizing more than 8000 employees there. the leader of that movement, a man named chris smalls, along with many others, started the effort early in the pandemic. he was singled out by the company and fired up sensibly

from violating coronavirus protocols. according to internal memo, he was targeted and called not smart or articulate. amazon tried to make him the face of the entire unionizing organizing. they got that right. now smalls is taking a brightly earned victory lap after the union vote succeeded on friday. he is in fact the face of the entire movement. it is worth remembering that amazon is not the only large on unionized workforce. in the past few months, there have also been labor incursions into starbucks stores, a store entire notoriously hard to unionize. close to 190 app petition for union elections. ten stores have voted to join workers united, including the manhattan flagship store. it was in this constitutes that president biden, a pro union guy, head of the party most associated with the labor movement, went to this union conference to deliver this message. >> that is what unions are

about in my view, about providing dignity and respect for people who buster neck. that is why i created the white house task force on work organization empowerment, to make sure the choice to join a union belongs to workers alone. by the way -- [inaudible] >> by the way, amazon, here we come. [applause] >> that is a remarkable moment. after that from the president, you have to wonder about amazon spokesperson, jay carney, who served as white house press secretary under precedential boma. before that as communications director frieden vice president joe biden. you really have to wonder how that line from his former boss landed as he no doubt what's the president speech from his office this afternoon.

that oddly satisfying feeling when you don't do it yourself.

♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ ♪♪ >> just for the record, madam

speaker, let me say that we are here for this contempt process today. the presidents own daughter complied with the wishes of the committee. i would think that if his daughter complied with the wishes of the committee, everybody else should. even the people who work for it. >> in america, no one is above the law. neither mr. trump, nor mr. scavino, nor mr. navarro.

there is no such thing in america as the privileges of the crown. >> a couple hours ago the house voted to hold former donald trump aides peter navarro and then scavino in contempt of congress for defying subpoenas from january 6th committee. it was a bipartisan vote with two republicans, liz cheney and adam kinzinger, joining with democrats. that vote results in a referral to the department of justice which will decide whether to criminally prosecute those men. these are the fourth and fifth referrals from the committee. harry litman served as deputy assistant an attorney general for the western district of pennsylvania. he joins me now. harry, i am happy to have an opportunity to talk to you. because i think that there is a complicated set of calculations that are being made over main justice about these issues. how do you think about how they are thinking about what to do? they have the pen and, when they have indicted, they have meadows and they have done

nothing, and now they have these two as well. what is the analysis you think they are using over there? >> yes. you are right. bannon, straightforward. we know to bannon, to meadows, to all of these guys, there is no claim of executive privilege. no question is privilege, that has been put to bed, including by the supreme court. the question really is, the answer to your question is, what is going on with meadows? it has been almost four months. and it is a little -- it is opaque, but there is a lot of supposition now. and don't suit the messenger, but everybody's favorite division in the department of justice, olc has a few memos out there that are making it harder to go after meadows because they say, and no court has ever said it, in fact the court has rejected it, but they say certain senior level advisers to the president have so called testimonial immunity. meaning, they can't show up at all.

they can just say forget about it. who gets them? senior level advisers. so let's start with navarro, i don't think so. and in general, he is just saying i want trump to waive executive privilege. but forget about that. it is biden's, i don't think there is a strong case, i think he will be indicted. skin oh, who they really need, they really made meadows. he is a trump's shoulder. all of january six, he knows what is going on, i actually think he is ready to do a year in jail for the boss but if the department is saying they are a bit worried about these memos, either they are worried of the doj policy, or they are worried that they sort of keep the department from finding guilty intent beyond a reasonable that. if that is their calculation with meadows, one about scavino? because the argument is, it is

senior level advisers. he is like a caddie who showed up, and is a fetcher for donald trump on the one hand. not very senior. on the other, he has got this kind of title, deputy chief of staff. so, how will that play out? it is not clear from the olc memos, which already are themselves discredited in the courts. but maybe giving the department fix. how do you like that? >> so the office of legal councils is weirdly kind of like the supreme court within the federal government, right? they issued these rulings, they kind of hold the law that the federal government internally will use, right? so you are saying -- >> the executive branch. >> the executive branch, sorry. >> even though with mueller, nobody -- it was just a memo, and he said doj policy, and here this idea of testimonial immunity, garland might think doj policy. >> right.

so what you are saying is that if that is the thing that is holding them back on meadows, then we have an interesting task case here. you think that navarro, it does not clear the bar, and then we should see them move forward in the way that they did with bannon. scavino might be a tighter call. there is also, i want to throw one thing out there as well, which is again, i don't know what they are thinking. but look across the street at the court, right? it is a six ring court. you -- i would be worried about making bylaw, right? if you tee things up to the 63 court in terms of what they will do with the inevitable appeals that might go up to them. >> you know. that is fair. but garland says on january 5th i am not thinking about that. and now scavino, he is such an important witness. i think again, a year does not deter much. i think with the department needs to be doing is really investigating him. he is knee-deep, i am sorry, he is neck deep in the whole

january 6th stuff. he is the social media guy. if they get him for conspiracy, he has got -- they have got real leverage on him. now he might cooperate. i think that he is ready to do a year on his head, as the mobsters put it otherwise. that is by the way, a year is what you get for contempt. >> yes. representative jim banks on the floor basically said that. he said why do you want to put this poor man in jail? it is unconscionable to see her political opponents be locked up, like lock them up, thank you very much. >> thank you, chris. >> all right, the doj investigation into january six has run into a bit of a snag. so for nearly 800 arrests have been made in connection to the attack. the problem is, they do not have enough lawyers to prosecute them all. that is next. that is next ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪

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months since thousands of trump supporters stormed the u.s. capitol building hoping to keep donald trump in power. the trials for all of those people are still happening. yesterday, a lawyer who was representing several notable january six defendants including a member of the right wing oath keepers who is charged with seditious conspiracy was disbarred in the state of virginia for a long list of violations. it decision is expected to impact that seditious conspiracy trial that is currently scheduled for july. but that is just one defendant out of literally hundreds. even those people are just the ones who have been charged.

according to a new report from nbc news, justice reporter ryan reilly, the fbi has names of hundreds of more rioters, and the justice department does not have enough lawyers to prosecute them all. ryan riley has been reporting on all of the january six investigations and trials. he recently joined us here at nbc news, and i couldn't be happy or. good to have you, ryan. this is like a snake eating an elephant. it has been a difficult thing for the system to process the sheer volume from the beginning. what is your reporting indicate, the sort of holdup is at the doj prosecutor level? >> i think it is really just a capacity issue. this is a large number of cases. this would be a logistical nightmare in any scenario. but when they really started, they sort of drew that line for entering the capitol to where they were going to church people. if you enter the capital, or you assaulted an officer outside, that is when you will be charged. when they drew that line, they really did not have an idea of

the full scope of the number of people who entered the capitol building. back then it was around 800, when in reality we are talking about 2500 people, plus all of the people who assaulted officers outside without ever entering the building. so we are very quickly approaching the universe of 3000 potential defendants here, which is just an enormous, enormous amount. it is multitudes of what's the court in d.c. typically handles on an average year, a few hundred cases. you really need a lot of manpower to prosecute these cases. especially as these cases are brought forward, it is not as though they are just making their way through the pipeline very quickly, it may take a while. even if someone is going to plead guilty, there are several stages to the process that requires sentencing memos, sentencing hearings, status updates, and discovery disclosure. so this is a really, really huge logistical nightmare for doj. that is why they have requested more prosecutors, more than double the amount of prosecutors that they have

currently assigned to the january six cases for the next fiscal year. >> yeah. one of the deputies for merrick garland, at the number two level over the doj said the other day, it caught my eye, this is the largest investigation in the departments history. i was like, i guess that numerically must be the case. but when you talk about it, i don't want to think how it is even processed the number of 3000. i have been following your reporting, i know with the arrest numbers are up to 800, but what you are saying is that there are many, many more outstanding still. >> correct. yes. hundreds of them have been identified already. these are -- i have reviewed several of them. there is zero doubt. they erased any reasonable doubt. it is the match and minutes, items of clothing that they are wearing that they find another social media photos online. these are the people who did it. there is really just no doubt about it. they really nailed these

identifications. but the problem is that you are dealing with this system that is not used to absorbing this many cases. you are dealing with field officer scattered throughout the country where, maybe some feel officer in one part of the country's and present to see asked about january six cases as another. maybe it gets held up in the bureaucracy at some point. so there is a lot of complicating factors to this. yes, identified more than 2500 individuals inside the capitol building that day, so that is really the scope that we are dealing with here. there is 350 people if you go on the fbi's website right now who most of them are accused of assaulting officers outside of the capitol who are still wanted by the fbi and have not been arrested. >> wait, 350 people who assaulted officers, or suspected of? >> yes. most of them who assaulted officers and are very highly sought after by the fbi. these are high level cases. >> there was also another big headline today which was the first acquittal in the january six case. an individual named matthew

martin, a trump supporter from new mexico believed the election was, stolen he went to trial before a federal judge, i know you were reporting on that. what happened there? >> yeah. so this was the second bench trial that we saw. it was before driver -- judge trevor, it was the second bench trial that they brought forward. and the first bench trial, he did hurt a split verdict where he found the defendant griffin guilty on one charge, but not on the other charge. that is the case where there is extensive video evidence where they can actually have -- so his entire experience is documented and you see him jumping over these barriers, climbing up these various points. so the evidence just sort of hit you over the head that yes, he was passing through these barriers, and it was clear that he knew what he was doing. at this case it is a bit more complicated because he did not have that pathway as well defined by video. he did not have a videographer with him. so in this case the judge said,

actually when he said that he thought he was being let into the capitol, even though there was a smash the window by the door, even though the alarm is blaring, because there was a cop there who was not actively stopping anyone from entering the capitol given how overwhelmed he was, and outnumbered by the crowd, maybe he had a reason to believe that he was allowed inside the capitol. that is a justification that this judge came up with. i think that might be a single for defendants going forward who might have not otherwise been willing to test their case if they are only charged with misdemeanors, and they can bring this to a bench trial instead of facing a d.c. jury. they might be willing to test their luck there. that could even complicate this entire investigation even more as people see if they want to test those cases rather than take a guilty plea or go to trial. >> yes. i am a true believer in vigorous defense for, you know, the presumption of innocence and in some ways there is a relationship between the capacity you highlight, that

this should be treated through the justice system. they should have their day in court if they want. there should be a capacity, and logistical men and women power to make that happen with every person who has issues. they would be arrested if that is the suspicion, and get to the trial if they want to trial, and we would allow the law to work its way through. ryan riley, great to have you on board, thank you very much. >> thank you for having me. >> that is all in on this wednesday night, the rachel maddow show with ali velshi starts now, good evening ali. good evening, chris. we will see you tomorrow evening. thank you at-home for joining us this hour. i am joining you once again tonight from the city of lviv in western ukraine. today, about 300 miles east of here in the suburbs of ukraine's capital, a welcome sight for residents. ukrainian army tanks rolling into the town of bucha. this is the town where ukrainian forces have for the last several days been finding the bodies of civilians who appeared to have been summarily executed during the several week occupation by russian troops.